Queen of Hearts
by soaring-smiles
Summary: "You have issues," she told him once, over a wooden scratchy table, with the torn booth digging into her thighs. "Serious issues." Lucy Saxon breaks into pieces. [Master/Lucy, Ten/Rose]


**What's this, I hear you ask? A fic that isn't about Rose and the Doctor? Surely not. But yes. I do have an interest in other characters, believe it or not. And especially Lucy Saxon. And also, be warned: this is not a happy story.**

**On a side note, I'm now beta-ing, if anyone's interested. Enjoy the story.**

* * *

_"And what do you want to be when you grow up, sweetheart?"_

_"A queen."_

_"Don't you mean a princess?"_

_"No. A queen."_

* * *

"You have issues," she told him once, over a wooden scratchy table, with the torn booth digging into her thighs. "_Serious_ issues."

It was their third date, and he was wearing a suit, and she had a silk dress on, and this was the dingiest dive in London, but that didn't matter.

"I mean, the things you say. They're so strange."

And all her perfect pronunciation was lost in a haze of beer, t's and s's and she had a stammer when she was younger, did he know? Maybe he did.

And he laughed and laughed and poured her another. "Oh, love, you have no idea."

And she giggled because it was all so _funny_, and forgot what he'd just said, about this magic box.

That was before she stopped calling him Harold.

Before she had issues, too.

* * *

He was disappointed the first time they had sex. She'd tried her best, she had. Dressed up, hair done beautifully, nails painted perfectly, sexiest lingerie she could fit in. And maybe she wasn't curvy enough, or something. Maybe she didn't know how to move properly.

But he came, and rolled off of her and she lay there panting because _god_, he knew how to use his fingers.

"Not enough," he growled.

The second time, he put an arm over her throat, and tied her wrists to the bedposts. He called her something ancient; she had taken Greek, and that wasn't her name, but he was too lost to remember, maybe.

She didn't like it, the way the bruises showed on her skin, the way she ached and _ached_ and there was a bite mark on her shoulder.

He did, though.

Perhaps that was all that really mattered.

* * *

They got married in a big church, with lots of important people, and her father walked her down the aisle.

"Don't screw this up," he hissed to her, and pinched her where people weren't looking, because that what he was like. Father of the Year.

Harry smiled at her and the priest intoned seriously and everything was just wonderful. Mr and Mrs Saxon, and their happily ever after. Sunsets and horses, and gilded photo frames. Wedded bliss.

He took her to World War Five, and they watched Australia being bombed to pieces. His fingers tapped out a fast, rapid beat that was somehow familiar.

"_He's_ down there somewhere," said Harry spitefully, and that was the first Lucy heard of the Doctor.

Not the last.

* * *

_"Queen of what, darling?"_

_"Everything, of course."_

* * *

She was bored.

This stupid spaceship in the sky, it was _boring_. A whole year to wait, to wait until the Earth blew up. And then?

The whole universe maybe. And here she was. Sitting and drinking tea and waiting for him. With lunatics and freaks and guns.

She took a sip, and touched up her mascara in the mirror, tugging at the blonde strands that floated down to frame her pale face. The guard that protected her shifted closer.

She'd never thought destroying the world could be dull.

* * *

"My father is down there," she had told him as the people screamed and the Rogue Traders sung in the background. He was dancing, gripping her hand, alive in all this terror and chaos.

He had smiled. "Happy, darling?"

She had closed her eyes, and imagined her father, walking around the mansion, being accosted by a Tocla-whatever they were.

Dying.

"Yes," she had answered him, and that night he made her come so hard she saw stars.

They didn't quite measure up to the real thing, she found.

* * *

She didn't like him. The Doctor. Old and wizened and when she walked past him she saw pity in his sunken eyes.

Pity. She didn't need pity. She was Lucy Saxon, wife of the Master. She was the most powerful woman in the world, and she _was not pitiable._

She wondered what he was like, this Doctor, before everything burnt. She wondered why the Master hated him so much.

And then she wondered when she stopped thinking of him as Harry.

* * *

"He's not what he says," said Jack.

He was very handsome, but in chains. Dirty and filthy, with blue eyes. Her brother had blue eyes. Jason. He was gone, she supposed. Ripped apart.

Lucy stood before him, in the most expensive dress in her wardrobe, darting glances at the door, and clutching a heavy enamel plate heaped with food.

"I know," she replied, and fed him more chicken. She'd taken to talking to Jack, when the Master-_Harry_ was busy.

He couldn't die, this man. The guards shot him for fun sometimes. Poisoned him, tortured him until he stopped breathing and then started again.

She would find it disgusting, but they were all screwed up here. She didn't even recognize herself in the mirror. Too thin, too numb.

"You look in worse shape than me," he said, cheerily, mouth full, so bright in the face of the apocalypse.

She touched the mark on her cheek. There was another under the neckline of her dress, his fingernails seared into her skin.

"I was very rude, you see," she recited woodenly, hatefully. "I n-needed to keep q-quiet."

Jack nodded, chewed. "I know sweetheart. He's a bastard alright."

She didn't much mind _his_ brand of pity.

* * *

_"And how do you become a queen of everything?"_

_"Marry a king, of course."_

* * *

It was days like these, seeing Tish Jones stumble out of his room, uniform rumpled, eyes blank and make up smeared that Lucy thought of the man who dated her before him.

Eric. Poor, handsome, funny and kind. He hadn't made fun of her for being stupid. But he hadn't been exciting. But this, this is where exciting landed her. Here, in the middle of a dying planet, with a psychopath husband who liked playing with knives.

"I'll bring you something for the bruises," she whispered to Tish, and got one herself for her trouble.

Vaguely, she remembered the days when he brought her flowers instead of blood.

* * *

She walked in and saw the Doctor, and tried to leave but it was too late. "Were you there? Canary Wharf?" he asks, and she nodded, slowly.

"I watched it on television," she answered. He turned back to stare out of the window.

She looked down and saw Japan burning. She had a Japanese friend once. A nice girl, a little shy. She'd gone back to Tokyo, last year.

"Did you lose someone?" she asked, and he just looked at the endless fires, wrinkled face lost in some ancient grief.

"Yes," he said finally. "I...she..." The Doctor fell silent, and she swore she could hear the screams, if she listened. Maybe the Master had put it on loudspeaker. He did things like that, sometimes.

She walked away to paint her toenails, and an hour later he was shrunk and put in a pretty gilded cage.

She knew how he felt, a little.

* * *

He came to her one night.

Gentle, for the first time in...eons, probably. Kissed her heavily, told her he loved her, and then made love to her on the bed, reverently. She fell asleep and he held her and everything, she knew, was going to be so much better.

She only found the video camera when it was propped in front of the Doctor's cage.

"He loved you, didn't he?" she asked, turning it off, leaving the air full of the echoes of fake and empty sounds.

He nodded his head, eyes staring up at her sadly. Pathetic and small and helpless, but still brave. Still that hero that Jack had spun so many stories about. She could see it; that inherent mercy.

"I didn't know he could love anyone," she mused, and he reached out a tiny hand to try and touch her shoulder. Even now, after what the Master had done, the Doctor still had compassion in him.

She gazed at him for a moment.

"I think," she said slowly, "that a long time ago, you made him very angry. What happened?"

He pressed a finger to his chest, huge eyes holding hers, and Lucy remembered that Time Lords had two hearts.

Twice as much to break, then.

* * *

So it was a choice.

_death do us part, darling_

Except she was dead already, had been for a very long time. And he had killed her. Had wanted to kill everyone.

_she met him at his book signing and he had such a lovely smile_

Her fingers pressed into the cold steel of the gun. No one was watching her. Not even him. She felt the bite of the metal in her palm, her fingers twitching. She was trembling.

_the first time he hit her, she cried and cried and cried_

She raised her arm. Where was that massage lady now? Cowering, probably. Dead, perhaps. He always got tired of them. Sooner or later.

_he took her into a magic box and showed her the stars, but she never knew that it wasn't a gift, that she owed him something_

She loved him.

_she didn't_

There was a very loud bang, and everything in her felt very very numb. The Doctor cried and howled but Jack came to her and held her hand.

"I'm sorry," he told her, lowly, his eyes burning blue and sympathetic. She smiled, a cold papery bitter thing that curled the edges of her mouth.

"I'm not."

* * *

_"And where will you find a king, exactly? The supermarket?"_

_"No. I'll find him in a fairy tale. Obviously."_

_"Of course. Silly me."_

_"I'll show you, when I'm all grown. You'll see then."_


End file.
